


till the future dares

by ell (amywaited)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cute, Existential, Existentialism, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, night vale weirdness on a more psychological level?, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell
Summary: Cecil says, “I was waiting for you.”It’s so casually said, breathed out amongst every other thought congregating between them, that Carlos almost misses it at first. He almost misses the genuineness with which Cecil speaks, the certainty with which he thinks, and the meaning hidden so deeply behind those wordsWhen he does recognise it for what it is, his breath rushes out in a huff. He says, “thank you,” and the words will never, not ever, be enough. Not in the face of the universe, not when Cecil could have everything and nothing, and Carlos only has so much to give him.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	till the future dares

**Author's Note:**

> title from [elegy on the death of keats](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45112/adonais-an-elegy-on-the-death-of-john-keats) by shelley. holds little to no relevance to this actual fic buuut i like it anyway.
> 
> hope u enjoy!!!!

The town is silent.

Carlos wakes up, curled in Cecil’s arms, legs and arms tangled together, until he can barely tell where he ends and begins. Cecil’s hair is spread out across the pillow, glowing almost silver in the sunlight streaming through their window. It’s somewhat diluted, but it makes Cecil look all the more ethereal, and Carlos is struck, once more, how truly magnificent Cecil is.

He wakes up, and the town is silent. He’s long since grown used to the constant humming and churning and chattering that Night Vale seems to inspire, some vague but continuous noise. So much so that the absence of it feels all the more unnatural.

Cecil stirs. His hair, wonderfully beautiful, stirs with him, and strands of it twist around Carlos’s own, creating a mosaic of brown on white. The contrast sets butterflies loose in Carlos’s stomach.

Although, perhaps that’s just Cecil alone, whose mere presence seems to turn every aspect of Carlos’s being up to one hundred, and it’s all so deliciously brilliant that it’s a surprise he manages to drag himself away each morning.

“Carlos?”

Carlos smiles against Cecil’s shoulder. “Good morning.”

“Why are you awake so early?”

“It’s quiet,” Carlos says. Cecil’s skin moves as he stretches. “I’ve never heard Night Vale so quiet before.”

Cecil hums. His fingers dance over Carlos’s forearm. “Is it?”

“Do you not hear it?”

Cecil shakes his head. “No.”

“Listen closer,” Carlos says. He pushes a kiss into Cecil’s shoulder and breathes his words into his skin. “It’s nice.”

“Mm,” Cecil murmurs. He sounds about half asleep still, warm and half molten inside. “Go back to sleep.” He leans closer, blowing hot air over Carlos’s lips before pressing them together. Carlos can almost picture the molecules of his being intertwining with Cecil’s.

“I have to get up,” he says, quiet because everything else is quiet.

Cecil rubs his nose against Carlos’s. “Stay here for a bit.”

“I have to go to work,” Carlos says. He’s grossly reluctant to leave, because Cecil is magnetic, and he can’t bear to be away from him. “Duty calls.”

“Science can wait,” Cecil says. “I’m here. And it’s nice, and it’s quiet. And you should stay for a while.”

“But my team,” Carlos says. It’s a lost cause as soon as he says it, because Cecil wants him here, and that’s more than enough.

“Your team will be fine for a while,” Cecil breathes. “Stay.”

Carlos kisses Cecil now, pushes his voice into Cecil’s lips. “Okay,” he says, like he would have ever said no.

Cecil smiles at him, sleepy and beautiful, fuzzy around the edges. “Good. Go back to sleep?”

“Just for a bit,” Carlos says. “Not for too long.”

Cecil makes a face like he’s hardly listening. He just pulls Carlos closer, wraps arms around him tighter, like he’s trying to crawl inside Carlos’s skin. Carlos just knows he would let him.

* * *

He gets home, and the town is still quiet and subdued. Cecil is quiet too, sitting with his legs tucked underneath him on the couch. There’s something melancholy about it, weighing heavy in the air, and permeating across the room.

“Welcome home,” Cecil says, and his voice is low, but it echoes through Carlos’s bones. “You were right this morning. It is quiet.”

Carlos leaves his shoes in an even pair beside the couch, drapes his coat over the back of it, drapes his legs over Cecil’s, who drapes his hands over Carlos’s calves.

“It’s nice,” he says again. It’s almost like he’s trying to convince himself of it, that the silence is good. He’s not altogether sure that it is.

“Yeah,” Cecil agrees. It sounds like he doesn’t know quite what he’s agreeing to, either.

The silence in the house is just as cloying and saccharine as it is outside, so thick that it’s like wading through jam. It paints the windows blood red, like stained glass, worshipping a god Carlos can't see.

Carlos puts his head on Cecil’s shoulder, listens to his heart beat through his neck and his lungs expand within him. He feels it happening within himself too, deeply and wonderfully and perfectly together. 

“Have you eaten?” he asks, and he feels the house take the words from him.

Cecil shakes his head, and his heart pumps one beat out of time. “I was waiting for you.”

It’s so casually said, breathed out amongst every other thought congregating between them, that Carlos almost misses it at first. He almost misses the genuineness with which Cecil speaks, the certainty with which he thinks, and the meaning hidden so deeply behind those words 

When he does recognise it for what it is, his breath rushes out in a huff. He says, “thank you,” and the words will never, not ever, be enough. Not in the face of the universe, not when Cecil could have everything and nothing, and Carlos only has so much to give him.

Cecil looks at him. “Well, of course,” he says, like it’s so glaringly obvious. “It made no sense to eat without you. Why? Were you planning on anything?”

Carlos shakes his head. “No. I was just wondering. Maybe we could go out?”

“Like a date?”

“No, not really. Just… going out,” Carlos says. “Together. Going out.”

“So not like a date?”

Carlos breathes his laugh against Cecil’s t-shirt. “I just wanna spend time with you.”

“How was your day?” Cecil asks. Carlos feels his words all the way in his stomach. He’s changing the subject, but it doesn’t feel that way. The jam on the windows is sticky and dark, and Carlos’s eyes won’t adjust to the light, but Cecil’s hands curl around his shin, and his palms are hot.

“Long,” he answers. “Slow.” Thick and heavy, running through his veins. An embalming fluid burning hot.

Cecil has a typewriter, an old one, one with keys that click and clack and rattle with a mind of their own. They type words before Cecil thinks them, and they begin to type now. The clack bounces through Carlos’s brain, and all of a sudden, the silence has never been so loud.

“Mine too,” Cecil says. “Time seems to pass slower without you there. As if it doesn’t exist at all.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s true,” Cecil murmurs. He sounds distracted now, concerned with matters on another plane of being, like he’s staring straight through the dimensions to something Carlos cannot see. “I fear sometimes, dear Carlos, that I don’t exist without you there.”

Carlos rubs his nose. “That’s impossible. You’re flesh and blood, of course you exist.”

“Only because you’re here now.”

“You exist all the time,” Carlos says. “I think of you all the time.”

“And what is time? It passes so slowly, it may not even exist at all,” Cecil says. “And I do miss you so.”

“I’m here, now,” Carlos says. He pushes his nose into Cecil’s neck, and breathes, breathes in his skin, breathes in his cells in a way that is so disgustingly intimate, and he hopes that he can keep a part of him forever.

“Yes,” Cecil says, and he sounds like he can hardly believe his own words. “You’re here, now.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! tell me what u thought..
> 
> soo i actually wrote this and 'analysed' it as i went, which i never normally do, and now means i have a load of little notes about what i was trying to say and mean and convey. so now im curious about how u read this! let me know!
> 
> idk how i feel about this, its kind of... a nothing fic. i had words and i just had to use them. yay word vomit! 
> 
> thanks for reading. hope ur well xxxx


End file.
